Theatres of surgery: the cultural pre-history of the face transplant
Biernoff, Suzannah (2018) Theatres of surgery: the cultural pre-history of the face transplant. Wellcome Open Research 3 , p. 54. ISSN 2398-502X.
|
Text
23958.pdf - Published Version of Record Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (4MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The first facial transplant, using a donor’s nose, chin and mouth, was performed on Isabelle Dinoire in France in 2005, but the idea of removing or replacing the face – either with a mask, or with a living face – has been around for much longer. This article explores the cultural pre-history of face transplantation: its speculative existence in legend, literature and film before it became a medical possibility at the beginning of the twenty-first century. One of the questions posed here is: how (and for what purpose) do medical ‘firsts’ like Dinoire’s surgery acquire a history? The article begins by considering the uses of the past by transplant surgeons themselves, and by those who are concerned about the ethical or psychological implications of organ and face transplantation. Having considered these different investments in the past – one emphasising medical progress, the other highlighting enduring anxieties about medical experimentation – we turn to the first cinematic portrayal of face transplantation, in Georges Franju’s horror classic Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1959). An exploration of Franju’s sources suggests a more complicated relationship between medical innovations and their cultural contexts and highlights the changing significance of the face as a site of medical and aesthetic intervention.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Face transplantation, organ transplantation, plastic surgery, disfigurement, Frankenstein, Georges Franju, Face/Off |
School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
Depositing User: | Suzannah Biernoff |
Date Deposited: | 21 May 2018 12:58 |
Last Modified: | 12 Oct 2024 17:04 |
URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/22486 |
Statistics
Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.